Mentoring Relationships and the Levels of Role Conflict and Role Ambiguity Experienced by Neophyte Nursing Faculty

After an examination of the current issues related to the shortages of nurses and nursing faculty in the United States, the importance of facilitating the transition of interested nurse clinicians into their roles as nurse educators in order to address the decreased number of nurses and nursing faculty became apparent. Mentoring in nursing education was identified as a valuable strategy to ease the transition from nurse clinician to nurse educator, and therefore as an essential component to acclimating and retaining neophyte nursing faculty in an effort to ameliorate the current nursing shortages. This study explored the effect of mentoring on the levels of role conflict and role ambiguity experienced by neophyte nursing faculty related to their transition into academe using a descriptive, comparative design. It also measured the relationship between the quality of mentoring experiences of neophyte nursing faculty and their levels of role conflict and role ambiguity using a correlational design. Benner's Novice to Expert Model (1984) was utilized as a framework for successful role transition. Rizzo, House, and Lirtzman's (1970) Role Conflict and Role Ambiguity Scale was used to measure the levels of role conflict and role ambiguity experienced by neophyte nursing faculty. An on-line survey was disseminated nationally to all American Association of Colleges of Nursing member schools yielding 224 eligible subjects. The results of this study indicate that mentoring does ease the transition of neophyte nursing faculty from practice into academe by decreasing the severity of role ambiguity and role conflict experienced during their acclimation into academe. Successful role transition has the potential to increase retention of neophyte nurse educators and ultimately positively affect the nursing and nursing faculty shortage.